The founding CEO of Springboard to Opportunities, home to the Magnolia Mother’s Trust guaranteed income program, called out how our economy has left the women she serves behind in the latest episode of Looking Back, Moving Forward—and how our narratives around poverty and deservedness shape what’s possible in the fight for economic justice.
Aisha Nyandoro, the founding CEO of Springboard to Opportunities, is on a mission to end generational poverty.
In addition to the nonprofit’s other work to support residents of federally subsidized housing, Springboard is home to the Magnolia Mother’s Trust (MMT), a guaranteed income program that has supported hundreds of Black mothers in Jackson, Miss., with $1,000 each month for 12 months. (For firsthand stories from MMT participants and other Black women navigating poverty and resilience, explore Front & Center, Ms.’ groundbreaking series in collaboration with Springboard to Opportunities.)
Magnolia Mother’s Trust is now the longest-running guaranteed income project in the country—and since 2018, it has challenged narratives around poverty and economic justice that gloss over race and gender or veer into notions of “deservedness.”
As part of the third episode of the Ms. Studios podcast Looking Back, Moving Forward, I talked to Nyandoro about the policy choices that create poverty, the power of cash without restrictions as an antidote, and why we all need to challenge ourselves to rethink poverty, class and capital.
Huerta is joined in this episode by labor icon Dolores Huerta, National Women’s Law Center vice president for education and workplace justice Gaylynn Burroughs, labor and women’s rights historian Premilla Nadasen, and economists Rakeen Mabud and Lenore Palladino. Together, we traced 50-plus years of feminist resistance to workplace discrimination, women’s disproportionate unpaid domestic and care burdens, and the sociopolitical factors that push women, in larger numbers, into poverty—revealing both how the system seeks to devalue all of “women’s work,” and what we can do about it.
Carmen Rios: What was your journey to founding Springboard to Opportunities, to launching The Magnolia Mother’s Trust? What has led you to this work and kept you in this work?
Aisha Nyandoro: The beauty of my life is I always knew I was going to do movement nonprofit work. I am the granddaughter of the Civil Rights Movement. I am a daughter of the South. I always knew that I would do work rooted in community. I always knew that I would do work within the South, because I was always taught that you grow where you’re planted.
Starting and leading Springboard was just a natural part of what I knew it was that I was supposed to be doing. I didn’t fall into service. I took very strategic steps as it relates to those individuals who mentored me, where I went to school, the education and training that I got, so that I could do service in the way that I wanted to.
I wanted my work to have as big an impact as it possibly could, and then also, I didn’t want to be broke, as I just don’t feel that they go hand in hand. Some people do. So I always knew that, and so, when the opportunity came to found Springboard and lead Springboard, and just seed the organization, I was like: of course, this is what I’m supposed to be doing.
When we started Springboard 12 years ago, I had worked in philanthropy for maybe six or 7 years, and I knew I wasn’t a good philanthropist, at the time. I didn’t quite realize that I was not mature enough to be working in philanthropy but, in hindsight, being where I am now, I wasn’t mature enough for that level of responsibility, especially a place-blased philanthropy, where you know a lot of the individuals and community that are also then coming to you for resources.
It just wasn’t a good fit for me. When we had the opportunity to start Springboard, I was like, I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be, and so, we did Springboard. We’re still doing Springboard, and Springboard is rooted, like I said, in community, but we also pride ourselves in being radically resident-driven.
Springboard is a nonprofit organization, based in Jackson, Mississippi, that provides programs and services for families that live in federally subsidized affordable housing. We pride ourselves on being radically resident-driven, and what that means for us is that we have relationships first. Relationships are the strategy. It’s not the programs. It’s not the services. It’s not the activities. It’s: Do the individuals who live in these communities know who you are? Do they know that you are their ally in the struggle? Do they know that you are their support system?
I always tell my team: The families that live in the apartment complexes that you serve should know that you are their mask. When I tell you, put your mask on first, they should know that you are their mask that they put on first whenever the shit hits the ceiling. With Springboard, prior to COVID, we did everything from after-school programs to workforce development and training, food pantries, you name it. We’ve been doing those, all hands on deck.
What would it look like if we gave Black mamas living in affordable housing the financial resources that they needed to be the author of their own lives—trusting that they know better than anyone else what it is that they need for themselves and their families to be successful?
Aisha Nyandoro
Four or five years into Springboard, I had a conversation with one of our moms that quite frankly changed the trajectory of the organization. It was a random Friday. I was on-site at one of the communities, like I typically was back in the day, and I just saw one of our moms, and I said “what are you doing this weekend? What are you doing? What are you and the kids doing? Just regular chit-chat, and she was like, “You know, I’m not doing anything,” and I said “What do you mean? It’s Friday, you’re not doing anything?”
She was like, “Ms. Aisha, I don’t even have 5 dollars for a pizza,” and in that moment, it really took my breath away. I’m sure it’s a conversation that she would not remember, that she didn’t think anything else of it—but I remember, in that moment, thinking that: Okay, this is a mom that I know, and know quite well, that we have relationship with. How do I not know that something as seemingly as inconsequential as a movie night with her kids, she can’t afford, and that that’s a hardship? This is a mom that was showing up for all of the things that Springboard was doing. I was like, we are missing something, fundamentally, here, with the families and the moms that we are in relationship with. This should not be their narrative. So, what is it that we’re missing?
That’s when we started asking different questions. Like I said, we’re an organization that’s radically resident-driven, so asking questions and being in community is not something that families sort of expect, having a feedback loop, and so, we went out and instead of having all of these questions about, oh, what do you need for your kids, the question was: What are we missing?
We heard all of these stories from our families where they were not asking us to do anything more, they were not saying that what it was that we were doing was not enough or wrong. They were simply talking about the realities of life and how hard life was when you have economic insecurity.
There were stories, you know, the one mom talking about how her daughter had made the cheer squad and how she was so excited about her making the cheer squad, but on the other hand, she was so stressed because how was she going to afford the uniform?
How was she going to afford cheer camp? What would it look like if she had to tell her baby no about this opportunity? There was another mom whose kid had made the next level of the science fair, and she was stressed about the 25 dollar registration fee for Jackson State. So, it was all of these conversations that when we sat down and listened, it was like, okay, this can all be solved with money, and not a lot of money as it relates to what we, middle-class America, consider a lot of money.
That is how the Magnolia Mother’s Trust came about—from listening to families and really asking, what would it look like if we gave Black mamas living in affordable housing the financial resources that they needed to be the author of their own lives, trusting that they know better than anyone else what it is that they need for themselves and their families to be successful?
Rios: We’ve shared stories in Ms. from the mothers who are being supported by MMT, but there’s hundreds more who have benefitted. What are some of the biggest impacts that you’ve seen guaranteed income and programs like these can have on women’s lives?
Nyandoro: The big picture is that we actually talk about guaranteed income. When the Magnolia Mother’s Trust started, we were first. We were the first guaranteed income program in modern history. We started, and then Stockton in California started about a month or two later, but we were literally the first program to actually name the inequities that exist along the lines of race and gender and class, because we’re also living in the South, we were working with Black mothers in affordable housing in Jackson, Mississippi. All of those were very intentional decision points that we made because you cannot talk about the need for guaranteed income without talking about how Black women in the South have systematically been locked out of the economy for generations and what that looks like.
When we started the Magnolia Mother’s Trust, it really for me, was about that lived legacy. How do we continue the work that Johnnie Tillmon started with welfare reform? How do we not only continue that work, how do we bring it forward—and not only how do we bring it forward, how do we seed what is needed next?
Because it’s all about legacy and continuation. I’m very clear that the piece of the work that I am doing is just that. It’s just a piece of the work. When I think about the work that we have done with Magnolia Mother’s Trust and guaranteed income, it’s just that. We helped seed a movement. Whether or not people understand the history and the legacy of the cash movement, we helped seed a movement.
Before Magnolia Mother’s Trust, guaranteed income, cash disbursements without restrictions, talking about the harm that’s been done in this economy, naming the fact that we have to change the narrative on how we talk about poverty by changing the narrator, and being front and center with sharing the stories of those individuals that are empowered by the policies that we all put in place and we all benefit from. That wasn’t really a thing.
To me, that’s the legacy. That’s the impact of the work.
When I say liberate financial capital, it’s just that. It’s recognizing that individuals are all deserved of a life that they envision for themselves and their family. They should not be predicated on their race, their gender, their zip code.
Aisha Nyandoro
People are always like: Oh, well, what did people buy? Of course, people bought shit. It’s capitalism. When you give people money, they go about buying stuff. Of course. But to me, that is the least sexy part of our work. I mean, seriously. I’m like, you all, it’s a given. You give people money, they pay their bills, they get out of debt, they go back to school, they do all of those things.
That’s important, but that’s not the only story. That’s the only story that we like to talk about because that then moves into the deservedness narrative—oh, they used the money to do the things that I think are appropriate for them to be doing. That’s not your business what they use the money for. Don’t ask me that question.
The impact of Magnolia Mother’s Trust is the fact that Magnolia Mother’s Trust exists, the fact that guaranteed income, in some circles, is now a part of our vernacular, and it’s not something that we are dreaming about. It is our reality, and we have the blueprint to see what that could actually look like for all of us to have financial liberation and freedom.
Rios: I loved what you said about deservedness and poverty, about these entrenched ideas. In the movement for economic justice, inside of all of us, culturally—what needs to shift in order for us to build an economy that really works for everyone, an economy where no one is left behind?
Nyandoro: We need to have a baseline understanding of how poverty works. Poverty is not an individual failing. Poverty is the result of systems that have been intentionally put in place that the majority of us benefit from. That’s why poverty exists. Individuals are not poor simply because they are not working hard enough, simply because they are not educated enough, simply because they are not doing whatever the things are we tell ourselves individuals are not doing.
That’s not true. Poverty is a systemic failing, not an individual failing. It is not a moral failing. We have got to become very honest with those conversations, and the reason that we don’t want to be honest about those conversations, because if it’s not an individual failing, I actually have some accountability for this system, as well.
We do not want to take off our mask and recognize, I am actually benefitting from this thing, and it actually may be some of what I have voted for or how I am positioning myself that the individuals in my community are struggling the way that they are struggling.
That’s what we all have to do. We all have to become very intentional in understanding the role that we each play in the outcomes that we’re all receiving.
We have the blueprint to see what that could actually look like for all of us to have financial liberation and freedom.
Aisha Nyandoro
Rios: I love the idea of you framing this work as liberating financial capital. It conjures this image that’s a lot different than some of the images that we’ve conjured in these movements, right? How can all of us be part of that? How does that movement, that idea, start to spread?
Nyandoro: When I say liberate financial capital, it’s just that. It’s recognizing that individuals are all deserved of a life that they envision for themselves and their family. They should not be predicated on their race, their gender, their zip code.
Liberating financial capital, really, is first interrogating: What are your views on cash? What are your views on poverty? Do you believe in this failed trap narratives that individuals can work themselves out of these poverty-wage jobs, when we are a country as rich as we are, and our minimum wage is still 7 dollars and 25 cents an hour? Because let’s be very clear, that is not liberating financial capital, in any sense of the imagination.
Let’s actually interrogate where you are in your cash-based policies. Are you really moving into deservedness narrative? Are you really leaning into this work narrative, and having a very narrow framing in how we define work?
That’s the first part: Invite people to do their own work, to understand what it is that you believe, interrogate what it is that you believe, and then, once you have done that work—because you will be surprised how many folks don’t actually understand where their beliefs about various situations come from, or whether they actually believe in it—if you realize that some of what it is that you’re actually doing doesn’t align with who you thought you were, then the invitation is, let’s go about doing some reading.
Let’s read Poverty, by America. Let’s read Evicted. Let’s read some of these other works that do a beautiful job of wrapping in data with narrative and giving a true sense of how policies have shaped so much of the ecosystem that is this country, currently. Then, from there, donate, get involved with what’s happening within your local communities. There are so many guaranteed income programs.
Guaranteed income is cash without restrictions. It is money given to a specific population for a specific set of time without restrictions. So, if someone is telling you they have a guaranteed income program and people have to do X, Y, Z, that’s not guaranteed income. I mean, it’s not. It’s just not. That’s another form of TANF or whatever else you want to call it, but there are over 150 guaranteed income programs, right now. There’s a guaranteed income program in most states, currently, right. Figure out if there’s a way that you can donate or volunteer with the guaranteed income program within your local community.
How do we continue the work that Johnnie Tillmon started with welfare reform? How do we not only continue that work, how do we bring it forward—and not only how do we bring it forward, how do we seed what is needed next?
Aisha Nyandoro
Rios: I know it’s a crazy time to ask, but: What is needed? What are some of the changes you would like to see, short and long-term, that would align with this work?
Nyandoro: I would just like for us not to all be blown up. That’s what I would like to see, you know?
If this was prior to November of 2024, I would be like: I would really like to see a federal guaranteed income. I would like to see the child tax credit made permanent. I would like to see universal childcare.
There are so many things that I would like to see that are possible, that we can’t even say that, oh, we don’t know what that would look like. We actually do know what it would look like. We have an entire template for the child tax credit that we receive, that most of Americans received during COVID. We saw that with that policy, we cut child poverty in half, in six months. Child poverty had not moved in four decades. We cut it in half, in six months, just by giving families with kids under a certain income bracket a check, to say go forth and use.
I would love to see all of that, but quite frankly, where we are right now, I would love for us to have better empathy and better understanding about the policies and systems that actually exist within this country. I would like for the folks in charge to actually know how shit works. That’s what I want in this moment.
You’re running around, cutting Medicaid. Do you know how that is going to decimate not just those individuals who are receiving Medicaid but all of us, as it relates to what that looks like for community, and families, and cities, and states, and infrastructure, if we do not have the very basics of preventative care that you receive with Medicaid? I would like to have politicians that have empathy, that know how systems work, that know what it means to be in a community, that actually know what is happening with their constituents in their communities. That’s just a baseline, and I really do think, right now, we’re at baseline.
I want some baseline basic stuff, and once we get to that, then we can get back to imagining.
The other thing I want in this moment is, those of us who are doing the work, I want us to recognize that, yes, the house is on fire, but we are prepared for this. Nothing has changed. It’s still on fire. Take a breath. Breathe. Recalibrate, and then let’s get to the work. I want us to be gentler and kinder with ourselves, and I want us to quit shocking our systems every day, because we are going to burn out, and we cannot burn out in this moment because that’s not what our communities need from us.
I would like to have politicians that have empathy, that know how systems work, that know what it means to be in a community, that actually know what is happening with their constituents in their communities.
Nyandoro
Rios: In a moment as challenging as this one, what is giving you hope?
Nyandoro: A lot of things are actually giving me hope.
What’s giving me hope is that I understand that this is just a moment. It’s not the end of the story. This is one point in time, and what’s also giving me hope is just understanding that I am responsible for one piece of this puzzle.
I had a conversation a couple of weeks ago with an elder—everybody needs to go talk to an elder that’s in the movement, it’s life-giving. I was having one of my house-is-on-fire moments. And I was like: How are you not screaming in this moment? Oh my god, we’re losing everything. I’m just whining. And she said two things. She said, “Number one, who told you that you get to win?” And I was like, “Oh, my god, you’re right. Who told me that you get to win?”
When she said that, I was like, yeah, you are right.
The other thing she said to me was, “You youngin’s are so caught up in your own individual work that you don’t understand your responsibility is just to hold the root.” And I was like, “You know what, thank you for that.”
The house is on fire, but we are prepared for this… Breathe. Recalibrate. Then let’s get to the work.
Aisha Nyandoro
What gives me joy in this moment is to understand that my responsibility is just to hold the root and to know that I am not the only one holding the root, that it’s a big, beautiful tree, and that there are so many individuals around, holding their root, and if we all continue to do that, and don’t get in despair, quit the doom-scrolling and all of those pieces and just hold the root, we will get on the other side of this because it is just a moment. It’s not the end of the story.
It’s a moment that is going to hurt, but whenever you are coming on the other side, there’s always rain before the rainbow. A lot of the systems that those of us who are doing this work recognize have not been working for decades, if not generations, are dying, and what a beautiful blessing that I get to be a part of not only the witnessing of those structures die but the imagining of what comes on the other side.
Rios: This podcast is focused on the last 50-plus years of feminist movement building, chronicled in Ms., and 50-plus years of transformation. What do you hope changes in the next 50?
Nyandoro: I’m hoping that everything that we’re fighting for now, we’ve actualized. Because 50 years isn’t that long. 50 years, my grandkids will be running around, doing whatever they’re doing. If I’m still around, I’m going to be old and on my rocking chair, cackling, you know?
50 years from now, I really hope that all these fights that we are all fighting so hard for, that so many individuals have died for, that legacies that have been woven over decades—I hope that we can sit under the shade of some of those seeds that have been planted and that we would’ve actually won on women’s liberation. That we actually will have abortion rights restored. That we actually will have cash without restrictions. That all of the pieces that so many of us are fighting for, that we would’ve won them. I hope that history is kind to us.
Great Job Carmen Rios & the Team @ Ms. Magazine Source link for sharing this story.
